Crowd for Angels

Innovative crowd funding platform

9.7% holding

Has launched a Liquid Crypto Bond Issue & an Initial Coin Offering

Ranked the UK’s 3rd most visited crowd funding platform

In December 2017, Eight Peaks acquired 9.7% of Crowd for Angels at a valuation of £3.7m. Crowd for Angels owns and operates the “Crowd for Angels” crowdfunding platform. Crowd for Angels has been at the forefront of crowdfunding since its launch in 2014. It was among the first crowdfunding platforms to become FCA regulated, one of the first to be approved by HMRC to manage the Innovative Finance ISA (IF‐ISA) and was the first crowd funding platform to launch its own Liquid Crypto Bond with attached Crypto Tokens through an Initial Coin Offering.

In line with Eight Peaks’ historic transaction based valuation policy, Eight Peaks holds its stake of 9.7% at the £3.7m valuation, or £360,000, the valuation at which it invested. This policy does not take any account of investee companies’ progress, nor of their further prospects since the latest transaction.

In June 2018, Eight Peaks reported that Crowd for Angels has made significant progress in its business. Its Liquid Crypto Bond and Initial Coin Offering, launched at the end of 2017, expects to see the majority of up to 5bn Crypto Tokens issued to investors. The Crypto Tokens, which are being issued as a reward for investing in the Liquid Crypto Bonds and to provide liquidity, were listed on the crypto currency exchange GetBTC (https://getbtc.org). In June 2018, the Crypto Tokens were trading at a price of approximately 1.7m Crypto Tokens to 1 Bitcoin. As at 17 August 2018, the price had increased to approximately 1.3m Crypto Tokens to 1 Bitcoin.

The Initial Coin Offering of its Crypto Tokens led to Crowd for Angels raising funds with its ongoing Liquid Crypto Bond issue. Funds raised from the Liquid Crypto Bond have started to be invested in crowd bond issues listed on the Crowd for Angels platform, helping a range of small businesses to finance the next stage of their growth plans. In addition, the experience gained during its Initial Coin Offering has led Crowd for Angels to offer new products and services including crypto backed bonds, private sales for Crypto Tokens and seed capital for crypto companies.

As part of the Initial Coin Offering strategy, the Crypto Tokens are also being used as a marketing tool, rewarding investors for engaging with the Crowd for Angels platform, advertising and media. Using various Crypto Token based marketing strategies, Crowd for Angels has risen from fifth (at the time of Eight Peaks’ investment in late December 2017) to third place in the most visited UK crowdfunding platforms (according to Alexa.com) after seeing website visitor figures grow by 290% between March and the end of May this year.